The invention relates to the use of liquid fatty acid esters or liquid hydrocarbons as surface analgesics and antiphlogistics.
A great number of analgesic or inflammation surpressing active materials for use on body surfaces are known, especially in the opthalmology. Most of these materials are organic, nitrogen containing compounds, which as bases are relatively inferior water-insolubles and which, therefore, are used either as free bases in an oily solution or in the form of salts in an aqueous solution. The oily solutions customarily employed for the free bases are normally sterilized, vegetable oils, which, however, exhibit the disadvantge that they, for example, build an oily film on the mucous membrane of the eye which most of the patients consider unpleasant.
Aqueous solutions, on the other hand, have the disadvantage of affecting the mucous membrane environment adversely by repeated use because they result in a change of the mucous membrane's osmotic conditions.
Thus, there is still a need for an oily carrier material for remedies used on mucous membranes, which does not have the disadvantages of the oily carriers employed until now and which especially does not result in injury to the visual faculty and give the patients unpleasant sensations when it is used in the field of ophthalmology.